The Print Club of New Yorkprintclubofnewyork.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/... · Elisabetta Sirani (Italian, 1638 – 1665), the daughter of an artist, showed talent at a young

The Print Club of New York Inc

P.O. Box 4477 Grand Central Station / New York, N.Y. 10163 / www.printclubofnewyork.org

Spring 2016

President’s Greeting – Spring 2016Kimberly Henrikson

Greetings PCNY Members,The 2015/2016 membership year has come to a close.

For those of you who attended the Annual Meeting and Artists’ Showcase, thank you for coming out. I hope everyone enjoyed the presentations given by the invited artists this year and found some new artworks to add to your collections.

I’d like to express my thanks to the Club members and our Board of Directors, and especially to outgoing Board members Charles Blanksteen, Muriel Moss and Corinne Shane and outgoing Treasurer Joan Blanksteen. Their years of service to the Club are deeply appreciated. So many of you have spoken with me at events and meetings about your involvement with the Print Club; it’s been a real pleasure. I understand many of you have a long his-tory of Club membership, and it’s reassuring to find so many who have been members since the very beginning. I’m thrilled to be part of a group with such a dedicated membership. The experience meeting new members has also been very encouraging as it continually renews my enthusiasm for print collecting and learning about print-makers and printmaking history.

As one year wraps up, it’s time to look ahead to the next. As mentioned at the Annual Meeting, the Club’s 25th anniversary is this year. This is a major milestone which will be celebrated with an event for members and our commissioned artists the evening of Monday,

November 7th. We are also putting together a commemo-rative book with all 25 prints and a history of the Club. More details will be sent around starting this summer. Be sure to return your completed membership renewal forms so as not to miss out!

Best wishes to everyone for a lovely summer. I look for-ward to seeing you in the fall.

The Print Club of New York, Inc.P.O. Box 4477 Grand Central Station

New York, NY 10163Kimberly Henrikson, President

Gillian Greenhill Hannum, Vice PresidentPaul Affuso, Corresponding Secretary

Joan Blanksteen, TreasurerMorley Melden, Founding PresidentJulian Hyman, President EmeritusLeonard Moss, President Emeritus

Board Members:Charles BlanksteenPaula Cangialosi

Kay DeauxNatalia Kolodzei

Rick MinersLeonard MossMichael RubinMona Rubin

Corinne ShaneGabriel SwireAllison Tolman

Publications Committee:Chair: Gillian Hannum

Fran AlexanderSheila Fane

Maryanne GarbowskyNatalia Kolodzei

Joan LewisDeborah Saleeby-Mulligan

Allison Tolman

Newsletter Editor:Gillian Greenhill Hannum

Recent Print Club EventsCurator’s Tour of Printing Women: Three Centuries of Female Printmakers, 1570 – 1900, New York Public Library, Saturday, February 20, 2016Gillian Greenhill Hannum

O nce again, Print Club members had the good for-tune of a private tour, led by Curator of Prints Madeleine Viljoen, of an extraordinary print exhi-

bition in the Print and Stokes Galleries of the New York Public Library. As with last year’s Turner show, we were able to do this from 9 to 10 a.m., before the library opens to the public, an opportunity well worth the effort of get-ting up a bit early on a Saturday morning.

As she greeted us, Viljoen shared that the exhibition had, the previous day, been chosen as a “Critics’ Pick” in Art Forum. The show has been extremely popular. The exhibition was built around the collection amassed by a unique and forward-thinking woman, Henrietta Louisa Koenen (1830 – 1881), wife of the first director of the Rijksmuseum’s Print Room. Between 1848 and 1861, she collected an impressive set of some 800 prints by women artists and printers of the 16th to 19th centuries. The col-lection came to the Library from the Avery Collection, acquired in a 1900 bequest; this work had not been exhib-ited since 1901. Avery, a very astute collector, acquired entire collections. The 80 or so works from the Koenen Collection have been supplemented, where needed for this exhibit, by works from among the Library’s other col-lections. Most of the artists are not well known.

The show was organized thematically; Viljoen began with the Early Modern Period, showing us an engraving by Jacob Bos (Netherlandish, active 1550 – 80) after a work by Italian Renaissance artist Sofonisba Anguissola (c. 1532 – 1625), one of the few female artists to rise to any level of prominence in the 16th century. The original drawing for the work, titled La vecchia rimbambita muove riso alla fanci-ulletta (Young girl laughing at the old woman), has unfortu-nately been lost, but the work, an example of a pittura ridicola (or ridiculous picture) in which an old woman is learning the alphabet, is clearly inscribed as “Opera di [the work of] Sofonisba Gentildona Cremonese.” Also assembled at the beginning of the exhibition was a collec-

tion of portraits of some of the women artists/intellectu-als featured in the show, such as Angelica Kauffman, depicted by an unknown artist in a lovely etching of 1784. There was also a mezzotint portrait of Sofonisba done in the 18th century by British engraver William Baillie based on a self-portrait of 1556 The exhibit was divided into sec-tions, the first being titled All in the Family. Most women who became printmakers prior to the late 19th century did so as part of a “family business” in the arts. Many of these prints were reproductions of paintings by other art-ists. Recent scholarship has elevated our understanding of reproductive prints; this work gave female artists a chance to depict subjects otherwise inaccessible to them as they could not work from male nudes. Diana Scultori (Italian, c. 1535 – after 1587) was the earliest female printmaker to sign her work (first name only). The daughter of sculptor and engraver Giovanni Battista Ghisi, she made an engraving of Giulio Romano’s painting of Latona Giving Birth to Apollo and Diana on the Island of Delos (c. 1570).

Not all early female printmakers were reproductive. Elisabetta Sirani (Italian, 1638 – 1665), the daughter of an artist, showed talent at a young age. The work in the exhi-bition was done when she was 19, the same year she became a master in her father’s painting workshop. Claudine Bouzonnet Stella (French, 1636 – 1697) and her sister worked for her uncle, Jacques Stella, who was a painter but decided to open a print shop. There, they cop-ied works by Poussin as well as their uncle’s work.

The next section featured Academicians and Court Artists. Here, Viljoen shared with us a little about the various roles played by different people in the printmaking process. She noted that from the 16th century on, prints often list those who played various roles in their production. For example, pinxit next to someone’s name meant he or she had painted the scene; fulcit identifies the engraver; sculpebat identifies the publisher; fecit means “made it.” Among the artists in this section was Marie Jeanne Buzeau (French, 1716 – 1796), an etcher and wife of artist Francois Boucher. Maria Cosway (English, 1759 – 1838), a friend of Angelica Kauffman with whom Thomas Jefferson was smitten, also made etchings, in addition to painting, drawing and writing music. There were three works by Kauffman (Swiss, 1741 – 1807) in this section of the show. This artist, who helped to found the Royal Academy in London, reproduced some of her own paintings in prints, but also made some very sweet and inti-mate original etchings. Caroline Watson (English, 1760 – 1814) was the first professional woman printmaker in Britain and the first to have a court position; she was named Engraver to the Queen by Queen Charlotte in 1785.

Indeed, a surprising number of aristocratic women also dabbled in printmaking, a fact made clear in the next sec-tion of the exhibition, A Noble Pursuit. Here we found a woodcut of a bust of a woman attributed to Marie de Medici (French, born in Italy 1573 – 1642) dated 1587. The print is labeled “Maria Medici f. [fecit].” It is an extraordi-narily good image and would have been made before her marriage to Henry IV in 1600. If it really is by her, it would be the earliest known print by a noblewoman. This section also included two charming prints by Madame de Pompadour (French, 1720 – 1764), favorite mistress of King Louis XV, one a charming engraving after Boucher of a seated child blowing bubbles from 1751. There were also

examples of prints by Queen Victoria (English, 1819 – 1901), who was introduced to printmaking by Prince Albert.

The next section of the exhibition focused on Amateurs. The word translates as “lover of art,” and the numbers of female amateurs grew, especially after the 17th century. These would have been women who were wealthy and well-educated. Many of these works, frequently etchings, imitated the styles of well-known masters such as Rembrandt and Ruisdael.

Gendered Books were displayed in a glass case at the end of the hall. During the early modern period, a very limit-ed number of books were written and illustrated by women. One interesting example was Le Livre de l’Ecclesiaste, a book produced in 1601 by Esther Inglis (Scottish, 1571 – 1624). Produced by hand using pen and ink, the volume seeks to imitate printing. Another exam-ple was a volume of botanical and insect illustrations by Maria Sibylla Merian (German, 1647 – 1717), who left an unhappy marriage, joined a radical religious community and moved to Surinam.

The final category in the show was “Lesser” Genres – which encompassed all categories of art that are not histo-ry painting. Because women were excluded from drawing from the nude, limiting their ability to do figurative work, they were often pushed into other genres. Here, there were subsections for “Ornament,” which included some lovely examples of Chinoiserie, “Botanicals,” “Portraits” – a lovely self-portrait etching by Angelica Kauffman of 1770 was found here, as was a lithograph of Napoléon’s mother by the Emperor’s niece, Charlotte Bonaparte (French, 1802 - 1839), who emigrated to America after Napoléon’s defeat — and “Landscape.” In this final section, there were repro-ductive prints, religious themes like Elijah being fed by the ravens, romantic shipwrecks and topographic scenes. Among the artists represented here were Thérèse Holbein (German, 1785 – 1859), a descendent of Hans Holbein who lived in Graz, Austria, and who includes herself in one work shown sketching en plein air. Also among the land-scapes was a lithograph c. 1830 titled Landscape with a Monk, attributed to the collaborative efforts of Charlotte Bonaparte, her teacher, Louis-Léopold Robert (French, 1794 – 1835) and her husband, Napoléon-Louis Bonaparte (French, 1804 – 1831), older brother of Napoléon III.

This splendid show provided not just an overview of women printmakers, but also a real survey of the history of printmaking itself. We are most grateful to Madeleine Viljoen for providing this very special tour.

Tour of Art for Every Home: Associated American Artists, 1934 – 2000, Grey Art Gallery, New York University, Wednesday, April 27, 2016Gillian Greenhill Hannum

I n late April, Print Club members enjoyed another guid-ed gallery tour, this one led by Susan Teller, Director of Susan Teller Gallery, and Kara Fiedorek, Graduate

Curatorial Assistant at the Grey Art Gallery. Teller worked

SpringSpring 2016 The Print Club of New York, Inc. Page 2


in the New York Gallery of Associated American Artists (AAA) from 1973 – 1988. In 1934, Reeves Lewenthal, a busi-nessman, contracted with a group of artists, including Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood, to produce prints that he could sell to the public at prices that average, middle-class people could afford. Thus was born Associated American Artists. Over the years, it expanded its scope into advertising and interior design before ultimately closing in 2000. This is the first exhibition ever focused on this company, which introduced so many to the idea of collecting original art work. The show, which runs through July 9, is broken into five sections: The Dawn of the Enterprise, focusing on the 1930s, Art for Commerce, exam-ining the 1940s and the move into ad campaigns, AAA and World War II, showing how the company supported the war effort, Modern Art in Your Life, marking the post-war expan-sion into the decorative arts, and “Pretty as a Picture”: Fashion and Furniture for the Masses, introducing new prod-uct lines and clothing in the 1950s. The company sold its products by mail order, in department stores and in its own galleries across America. Lewenthal wanted to encourage collecting, previously the domain of the wealthy, among the middle and upper-middle classes. AAA transformed own-ing fine art from an elite pursuit to one for every man (and woman). The show was organized at the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art at Kansas State University and was curated by Elizabeth G. Seaton and Jane Myers. A major book by Gail Windisch preceded the show.

Susan Teller began the tour with Thomas Hart Benton’s 1936 lithograph, Frankie & Johnnie, a $10 print from an edi-tion of 100. This was one of AAA’s more expensive offer-ings. Generally, prints were made in editions of 250 and sold for $5 each. In 1946, Sylvan Cole, who played a key role in the founding of The Print Club of New York, was hired. He left after a few years, then returned when the gallery changed hands in 1958, at which point he was given carte blanche in running the operation. He focused on prints and was Teller’s boss. His first love was for the artists, and he instilled this same love in his employees. Harry Sternberg was one of Susan’s favorite artists. Peggy Bacon also made prints for AAA; Teller never met her but often spoke with her on the telephone.

Teller shared the story of how Gail Windisch came to put together the book that led to the show. She had pur-chased some AAA prints on eBay and had also begun to collect AAA catalogs, which were the heart of the mail order business. However, her prints weren’t in any of the catalogs. She eventually documented over 3,000 prints issued through the gallery. Susan noted that her job, when hired at AAA in 1973, was to put together the catalogs. Benton was still producing for AAA at the time. Several catalogs a year were mailed to about 35,000 people. The focus of the gallery was on original art, and that word fea-tured prominently in the publications.

Teller noted that a lot of the early work in the show seems to have a social message. She said maybe this was not so typical of AAA in general, when much of the work was less dramatic. The gallery required to see a print before they would approve it for editioning. Some were mailed back and forth to the artist often. Also, not all edi-tions of 250 were completed. Generally, 50 would be printed at a time, signed and sold, then more would be

printed. Grant Wood’s 1939 lithograph, Sultry Night, proved to be an interesting case in point. The scene, which included a nude farmer dousing himself with a bucket of water, was included in an AAA catalog. However, the United States Postal Service deemed the image “offen-sive” and would not ship the catalogs until the offending image was torn out. Therefore, the image was only known by people who came into the gallery; as a result, only 100 were printed. When an edition sold out, the image in the catalogs would be stamped in red “sold out”; originally, editions were not numbered.

When the gallery started, the work was all by American artists. In the early period, they also sold some paintings and drawings. That changed under Sylvan Cole’s director-ship. He had School of Paris prints and a very nice selec-tion of prints by Mexican artists such as Alfredo Ximenez, Francisco Mora and Miguel Covarrubias, a number of which were included in the show.

One of the most interesting things about the exhibit was the relationship between fine art and advertising. Reeves Lewenthal had gotten corporate underwriters for his venture. For example, American Tobacco commis-sioned work from artists who came and spent time in the tobacco camps. Sometimes the corporate sponsor owned the painting(s) that were executed, sometimes the artist did, often the images were used in corporate ads, often appearing on the back cover of LIFE or LOOK magazine. Benton created an image that was used for a Lucky Strike ad; later, the artist made a fine art print of the farmer.

Most of the artists also worked on the World War II program. Curry created Our Good Earth…Keep it Ours, Long May it Wave in 1942 for War Savings Bonds Series E. Harry Sternberg, who had leftist political leanings was never invited to be part of the war program, however.

Sylvan Cole had initiated monthly exhibitions at the gallery. He also acquired the print estates of Stuart Davis, John Taylor Arms and other artists not part of the “250 program.” In the 1970s, they also showed the work of individual contemporary artists. One day a week artists could come in with their portfolios. Six to ten works would be chosen; the work was then matted and shrink wrapped for the bins. Sylvan also made annual buying trips to Europe. In the 1950s, when he began, Europe was still hungry for U.S. dollars. Susan recalled that Seymour Hayden and Rouault were her first shows at AAA.

Many members shared memories of having visited AAA, going through the bins and alphabetized drawers and finding remarkable things like prints by William Blake. Sylvan left in 1983. By the 1980s people wanted large, color prints; artists didn’t want to do large editions anymore; expenses for the mail order business grew sig-nificantly. Teller left a few years later.

Though not included in the tour, the exhibition also featured ceramics and textiles marketed by AAA begin-ning in the 1950s. The lower level was devoted to the peri-od of Cole’s leadership and displayed gorgeous prints by Gabor Peterdi, Helen Gerardia, Warrington Colescott, David Hockney (AAA was his first U.S. publisher!), Stanley William Hayter, John Ross and Eldzier Cortor, as well as more ceramics and textiles. Susan Teller was a wonderful guide, and her personal memories and anec-dotes brought the show to life.



Print Club Annual Meeting and Artists’ Showcase, Society of Illustrators, Tuesday, May 24, 2016Gillian Greenhill Hannum

O ur Club’s final event of the year was our Annual Meeting and Artists’ Showcase. The evening began with a brief business meeting, at which President

Kimberly Henrikson reported that we are on firm financial footing and have secured Judy Pfaff as our 2016 commis-sioned artist. She also shared the date of our 25th Anniversary celebration – Monday, November 7; the event, for members and presentation print artists, will be held at 50 UN Plaza. Next, we turned to the election of Board mem-bers. She invited additional nominations from the floor; there being none, she reported that Kay Deaux, Natalia Kolodzei, Gabriel Swire and she had been reelected with 90% of the proxy votes. Charles and Joan Blanksteen, Muriel Moss and Corinne Shane are stepping down from the Board after many years of service. There was a warm round of applause for their many contributions.

Events Chairperson Kay Deaux took the podium to introduce the Showcase, her favorite event of the year. A com-mittee visits print shops around the area to indentify artists of interest. A short list of 18 was compiled from these visits for this year, and ultimately five artists, selected by the Showcase Committee, presented their work through Power Point presentations. Featured were Alan Petrulis (www.nighttracings.com), Luanda Lozano (www.luandaloz-ano.com), Annie Patt (www.anniepatt.com), Nina Jordan (www.ninajordan.com) and Deann Prosia (www.deannl-prosia.com).

The committee discovered Petrulis in an exhibit mounted by the New York Society of Etchers last year. He trained at Queens College and Maryland Institute. He noted that he is obsessed with etching, and his subject of choice is the people of New York. He takes long walks around the city with his camera, taking photos which he then uses as the starting point for his prints. Often mul-tiple photographs come into play in the making of a single etching. His goal is to capture a very specific sense of place.

Luanda Lozano is Dominican with Angolan roots. She has a B.F.A. from Parsons and has collaborated for many

years with the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop. Primarily a painter, she made her first etching at 15 and creates prints that are abstract but organic and combine etching with chine collé. She is currently co-Vice President of Manhattan Graphics Center.

Annie Patt is still at a relatively early stage of her career; she received her bachelor’s degree from NYU in 2003 and has studied at both Parsons and Art Students League, where our committee discovered her. Mainly a painter, she came to etching about four years ago and

tends to work through a single com-position again and again. Sometimes she begins with a paint-ing and translates it into a work in black and white and then, finally, an etching. She likes to experiment and shared with us that she used baby powder on her plate to get the snow effect in Citi Towering.

Nina Jordan was discovered at Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk, CT. She makes reduction woodcuts using found lumber. She has a B.A. from Bowdoin College and a M.F.A. from Brooklyn College. The focus of her work in recent years has been hous-ing and real estate. Her series “Homes for Under $50,000” com-ments on the subprime mortgage crisis. They are “portraits of hous-es” taken from real estate ads. She says that her aim is to “depict the souls of houses.”

Deann Prosia is also from CCP in Norwalk. Born in Chicago, she now

lives in Newtown, CT, having moved there in 1996. She focuses on architecture and loves New York City as a sub-



Annie Patt, Alan Petrulis, Luanda Lozano, Nina Jordan and Deann Prosia. PHOTO BY GILLIAN HANNUM

Print Club Members Purchasing Prints at the Artists’ Showcase. PHOTO BY GILLIAN HANNUM

ject. A line etcher, she uses lines to mimic aquatint. She studied with Phil Thompson and has been etching for about 25 years. She, too, often works from photos and also tends to combine them. A recent article about Deann appeared in The Journal of the Print World.

All the artists gave excellent talks about their tech-niques and choices of subject matter. Following these short presentations, all moved to the lower level where tables were set up with portfolios, and members were able to purchase prints directly from the artists.



Print Club members talking with artist Nina Jordan. PHOTO BY GILLIAN HANNUM

Print Club members looking at prints during the Artists’ Showcase. PHOTO BY GILLIAN HANNUM

Artist Alan Petrulis making a sale. PHOTO BY GILLIAN HANNUM

Artist Deann Prosia making a sale. PHOTO BY GILLIAN HANNUM

Artist Annie Patt.PHOTO BY GILLIAN HANNUM



Exhibition Reviews“Infinite Opportunities: The Woodcuts of Helen Hyde and Bertha Lum,” Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, through July 31Maryanne Garbowsky

W hat a treat—a respite from the heat of a hot summer’s day at the Zimmerli Art Museum’s Eisenberg Gallery! Here until the end of July is

a small pocket of prints by two women artists who are noted for their fine color woodcuts. These two women—Helen Hyde and Bertha Lum—were well known in the early years of the 20th century and are still worthy of our attention today, which Christine Giviskos, Curator of Prints, Drawings, and European Art, amply justifies in the show “Infinite Opportunites Offered in Color.” The title of the show is taken from Helen Hyde’s description of her fascination with Japan, which reads in full: “Japan was a gem, a revelation…coming into Japanese life, I was overjoyed by the infinite opportunities offered in color.” Both artists lived in Japan, Hyde for fourteen years and Lum during different periods of her life. Her interest in Asian art also led her to China where she lived in Peking.

The show, which consists of eighteen prints by Hyde and sixteen by Lum—all part of the Zimmerli’s print col-lection—attests to both artists’ love of Japanese ukiyo-e prints, “Japanese woodcuts made to celebrate the ‘floating world’ of transitory pleasure,” which they each adapted to create their own unique vision. Hyde’s work is distinc-tive in its subject matter, which is primarily domestic, including mothers and small children. Like Mary Cassatt before her who neither married nor had children, Hyde chose this as her preferred subject matter. Almost all of the prints in the show include children—charmingly and sweetly engaged in daily activities: one reaches out from a playpen trying to touch a box turtle, others busily sweep leaves away with their new brooms, while another shows children at play.

This latter print, A Windy Place (1913), is one of my favorites, demonstrating Hyde’s style. In it we see her love of the curving line and her use of parallelism. The energy of the imagery is the result of the similarity of form — the delicate beauty of the tree bough on the upper right is reiterated by the bending back of the child pulling the makeshift ride. The child who enjoys the ride reverses and completes the circle, creating a unified and dynamic whole.

Another noteworthy and popular print is an earlier one, The Shower, done in 1898. Here the color is rich and dramatic; a deep blue umbrella opens against the slanting, slashing lines of rain, while a figure dressed in darker blue hurries through the bad weather with a young child in tow, close by her side.

One interesting insight into Hyde’s technique is pro-

vided by the key print for A Summer Girl (1905) framed along with the finished print. Here we see how Hyde works: the key print was drawn by the artist who then gave it to the master Japanese craftsman who carved it in wood under her supervision. She would then add color to the key print, return it to the craftsman, who would then carve additional blocks to create an edition of color prints.

Just as accomplished and intrigued by the Japanese print was Bertha Lum, who was slightly younger than Hyde and initially less well known. Her subject matter was broader, focused on traditional myths and folklore, which she illustrated with her color woodcuts. The cura-tor provides excerpts from the legends and tales with the prints, thereby amplifying and expanding their meaning. One in particular was Tanabata (1912). Because of her fondness for her husband, Tanabata “neglected … her duty to her father, the God of Heaven.” For this she was punished, separated from her husband and not allowed to see him except for one night a year: on a clear night — “the seventh night of the seventh moon.” In this lovely image, which demonstrates Lum’s virtuosity in her use of color and light, we see the “lovely Tanabata …clad in blue and lighted by a yellow candle” as she walks across a bridge made by “the birds of heaven.”

Some of my favorite prints in the show are the raised line color woodcuts, a technique Lum learned from tradi-tional Chinese printmaking. Here the artist takes damp paper and presses it over a carved woodblock, which then embosses the design on the paper, raising the image. She then colors only those raised areas, creating a print that appears three dimensional. In The Promenade of Marionettes (1927), we see the effect of this technique, its emphasis on the figures and their movement. For this particular print, she uses oils, black lacquer, and gold, dramatizing and heightening its impact.

One of Lum’s best known and most often reproduced prints is The Land of the Bluebird (1916). In this natural scene, we see Lum’s skill at creating a balanced composi-tion as well as her love of nature and its creatures. In this delicate, detailed print, three fairies observe two bluebirds as they fly from the upper right to the lower left of the print. Their motion dramatically divides the print diago-nally while, at the same time, echoing the downward hanging branch.

As you can see, the exhibition is worth a visit. Not only does it reawaken one’s interest in the Japanese print and highlight its creative adaptation by both these two artists, but it also demonstrates the skill and talent of two outstanding women artists who assimilated the best of the East and brought it back to the West for us to enjoy.

Addendum: While at the museum, you might consider seeing a few

other shows: “More than Fifteen Minutes of Fame: Warhol’s Prints and Photos” and “Honore Daumier and the Art of La Caricature,” both on exhibit until July 31st. There are two others that are not mentioned in the Zimmerli’s list of current exhibitions, but you might enjoy—lithographs that accompany a project co-spon-sored by the Rutgers’ Center for Innovative Printmaking, which deals with new versions of “The Story of Creation”

The collection was established in 1916 when the Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired over 3,500 prints from Harris Brisbane Dick. It was this acquisition that led to the hiring of Ivins and the establishment of the depart-ment. Dick’s collection focused on the 19th century etch-ing revival. Ivins (and later, Mayor) were not so keen on aesthetic prints; they were more interested in prints that linked to the history of ideas. Nonetheless, they built on Dick’s gift by amassing a remarkable collection of etch-ings including a near-complete set of Rembrandt’s etch-ings, works by living artists like Edward Hopper (at a time when collecting contemporary art was revolutionary at the Met), John Sloan, Martin Lewis, Reginald Marsh and Swedish artist Anders Zorn. Ivins especially focused on acquiring work by Goya, then largely unappreciated. Ten of Mary Cassatt’s prints were given to the newly-formed department in 1916 by Ivins’ friend Paul Sachs, Assistant Director of the Fogg Museum; seven more prints by the artist, including The Letter (1890 – 91), were given by his brother, Arthur Sachs. The Met also collected etchings by Degas, Helleu, Whistler, Pennell and Hassam. The first room of the exhibition particularly showcased the Rembrandts (a full wall and multiple states) and Goyas and also contained a vitrine with works by Jacques Callot.

The second room highlighted engraving and focused on the Renaissance. Five masterpieces by Dürer, including the 1504 Adam and Eve, and two by Raimondi, including The Judgment of Paris after Raphael, c. 1510 – 20, were joined by works executed by Giorgio Ghisi, Jacob Matham and Lucas van Leyden. Among the four prints by the lat-ter was a 1519 print of The Dance of the Magdalene, an unusual subject showing the Magdalen as a courtesan prior to her conversion. Another work was done when van Leyden was only 14 years old. Pollaiuolo and Mantegna were also represented. A case of books featured woodcuts, the earliest examples of which were published in Verona in 1472, in Rome in 1483 – 84 and 1485, in Venice in 1485 and 1494, in Mainz in 1486 and in Florence in 1491. Ivins was especially interested in the role of woodcuts in the exchange of ideas and information dur-ing the Renaissance.

The third and final room focused on lithographs and popular prints for the mass market. Mayor was drawn to the relatively modern medium of lithography, developed at the end of the 18th century. He collected popular prints in this medium as a window onto society. Daumier was well represented with five works; Manet was represented by his 1868 print of The Execution of the Emperor Maximilian, June 19, 1867; a huge poster of 1891 by Toulouse-Lautrec of The Moulin Rouge hung near theatre programs by Vuillard and a poster by Bonnard. American commercial posters for Novelty Iron Works and Ship Owners and Merchants Tug Boat Company hung near those for Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine and The Chap-Book. Cases held lithographic postcards and playing cards as well as collecting cards of movie stars, presidents, sports cars and baseball players. This gave an excellent feel for the broad manner in which Ivins and Mayor formed the collection. A fully-illustrated catalog is available.



and the Rutgers’ Class of 1937 Choices, which include some fine prints by Homer and Sternberg. Both of these are on the first floor level.

“Edgar Degas: A Strange New Beauty,” The Museum of Modern Art, through July 24Gillian Greenhill Hannum

I f you’ve not seen the Degas exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, make your way to 53rd Street as soon as possible as this extraordinary show

will be closing in late July. It is a revelation! Room after room of the special exhibitions gallery on the museum’s top floor are filled with the artist’s experiments in print-making. While it is billed as a show about monotypes, it includes far more than that, as Degas also experimented with etching and lithography. In addition, there are mono-types with added pastel as well as some oil paintings and straight pastel works for context and comparison. The art-ist’s experiments in photography are even highlighted with an example of a portrait he made of several of his friends.

Like Rembrandt, Degas clearly reveled in the processes involved in making prints, and the sheer number of works is mind-boggling. The familiar ones are all there, of course, the brothel scenes, the bathers and the ballerinas, but there are some incredibly modern-looking landscapes, most of which I had never seen, and other scenes from modern urban life. Works have been borrowed from pub-lic and private collections around the world allowing this to be a truly encyclopedic exhibition featuring 120 mono-types and 60 supplemental works in other media. The art-ist was relentless and bold in his experimentation, and this exhibition resituates him at the forefront of modern, abstract art. A catalog is available.

“The Power of Prints: The Legacy of William M. Ivins and A. Hyatt Mayor,” Metropolitan Museum of Art, January 26 – May 22, 2016Gillian Greenhill Hannum

T his impressive show of prints from the Met’s per-manent collection celebrated the department’s cen-tennial. Ivins (1881 – 1961) was founding Curator

of Prints at the museum, a position he assumed in 1916. His protegée, Mayor (1901 – 1980), joined the staff in 1932. The two of them amassed an extraordinary collection of literally hundreds of thousands of prints, encyclopedic in scope. The exhibit shows how they composed the muse-um’s print collection to be like a library; it is not a collec-tion of all masterpieces.

“From Ukraine to New Jersey: Louis Lozowick’s Prints of American Life,” Pierro Gallery of South Orange, New Jersey, January 20 – February 25, 2016Maryanne Garbowsky

A chance glimpse at the Sunday New York Times’ Metropolitan section listing New Jersey art shows was fortuitous. I might have missed the

exhibition, but luckily was able to get to see it the weekend before it closed. There were 42 prints in all, a mere fraction of the 300+ prints that Louis Lozowick pro-duced over his lifetime, but they were well selected and representative, giving an overview as well as suggesting the range of the artist. A master lithographer, Lozowick worked throughout his career to perfect his draftsman-ship by capturing urban landscapes, including industrial sites, as well as appealing natural scenes.

An immigrant from the Ukraine, Lozowick never lost his boyhood wonder when he first eyed the magnificent man-made structures such as bridges. Given his talent, which he developed both in college and professional art school, he was able to create such memorable images as The Brooklyn Bridge and The Queensboro Bridge (1930) and transfer his own excitement in their structure and stature onto paper for others to enjoy.

Lithography was the medium best suited to Lozowick’s vision. A process not easily mastered, he was able to control the effects he was after, using both hard line and soft sfumato. His style is distinct: he combines a hard-edged precision with a poetic impressionability that plays on strong contrasts of light and dark. In The Queensboro Bridge, for instance, we see the powerful pro-jection of the bridge in the darkest of black as it strides from left to right across the page. The top of the bridge,

beginning in the left-hand top corner, descends to the middle of the right side where it lightens and fades in color. So, too, the river beneath shimmers with the inter-play of white and gray, delicately suggesting the water’s reflection of this monumental structure. It is hard not to recall poet Hart Crane’s tribute celebrating the Brooklyn Bridge when we look at Lozowick’s images:

O Sleepless as the river under thee,Vaulting the sea, the prairies’ dreaming sod,Unto us lowliest sometime sweep, descendAnd of the curveship lend a myth to God.

The exhibition was arranged in four rooms, each room

centering on a particular theme. The first room, which had the most prints, included work from urban land-scapes as well as scenes commenting on social and con-temporary events. The second showcased his travels, with prints depicting places he had gone. The third, which was the smallest, displayed self-portraits, and the last, and perhaps the most relevant and interesting to the loca-tion, was the work done in and around South Orange where he lived and worked. This last room had personal memorabilia, such as photos of the artist in his home and studio. Some other additions to the exhibit were a short video from the Museum of Modern Art explaining the process of lithography along with a stone and tools. There were also two books on view: a copy of Lozowick’s memoir Survivor from a Dead Age and an impressive The Prints of Louis Lozowick: A Catalogue Raisonné by Janet Flint.

The exhibition, a joint effort put together by Seton Hall University, private collectors, art galleries, museums and libraries, including the Montclair, the Zimmerli, and the Newark Public Library, was curated by Taylor Curtis, a young Master of Arts student at the university, who researched the artist and welcomed guests to the exhibition and answered all their questions. I was glad I hadn’t missed the opportunity to visit the Pierro Gallery and learn more about Louis Lozowick and his artistic achievement.



Book ReviewGillian Greenhill Hannum

Small Victories: One Couple’s Surprising Adventures Building an Unrivaled Collection of American Prints by Dave H. Williams (David R. Godine, 2015)

T he names of Reba and Dave Williams will be well known to many members of the Print Club, but even those not familiar with them and with the collection

they built will find this print collecting “autobiography” an enjoyable read. As was the case for so many Club members of a certain age, Dave’s initial source for buying prints was the New York gallery of Associated American Artists. The year was 1968. Introduced to the idea of print collecting by a business colleague, Dave jumped in with both feet. The book goes on to explore in great detail the rich and reward-ing experiences that he and Reba have enjoyed over the course of nearly half a century building an unparalleled pri-vate collection of works by American artists with amazing breadth and depth. Chapters focus on various periods or

styles of art, beginning with “The American Century in Prints: 1900 to the WPA,” then a chapter on “The American Century in Prints: WPA Prints,” “the Resurrection of the Screenprint,” “The American Century in Prints: Famine to Feast,” “Alone in a Crowd: Prints by African Americans,” “Widening the Search,” “The Mexican Muralists and Prints: Teaching Gringos,” “Early American Prints: Revolution, Audubon and the Etching Revival,” “Birds and Flowers,” “Sharing: Creating Exhibitions,” “Artists in War,” “Miniatures,” “Art that Sells,” “It’s a Wrap” and “The Final Wrap.” The stories of individual acquisitions – some planned, many not – are told in lively detail. Williams also shares the circumstances that led, again and again, to a broadening of the couple’s tastes. He doesn’t hold much back, so along with enthusiastic praise for many in the print world with whom the couple interacted, a few individuals also come in for some criticism.

For decades, the collection of over 6,000 prints graced the walls of Alliance Capital’s various offices around the world; Dave was CEO for two decades. Upon his retire-

ment, the couple set up The Print Research Foundation in Stamford, CT, visited by Print Club members in the spring of 2008. The book tells the story both of the Foundation’s establishment and of its ultimate dispersal, with segments of the collection going to different museums — more than 200 prints of works by African-American artists going to

the MET, many of the Mexican prints going to the British Museum, and the bulk of the Foundation’s holdings going to The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Thus, the collection’s full story has been told. The book includes color illustrations, a glossary, endnotes by chap-ter and is fully indexed.



L ori Bookstein Fine Art is featuring Paul Resika: Recent Paintings from April 28 – June 4, 2016.

We have received news from Bill Jacklin. He is the subject of two new books. Bill Jacklin Graphics, a monograph to be published by the Royal Academy of Arts Publishers in London, with a forward by Jill Lloyd and an essay by Nancy Campbell, will be out in late April, and Scala will publish Bill Jacklin’s New York, with a forward by Sting and an interview by Michael Peppiatt, in mid-May. The artist’s paintings will be fea-tured in a show at Marlborough Fine Art in London from

Sheila M. Fane

TATYANA GROSMAN (1904-1982) AND THE BEGINNING OF ULAE

“Tatyana Grosman…set the standards of perfection in printmaking and print publishing though Universal Limited Art Editions”; this is the way she was remem-bered in her New York Times obituary (Russell).

The story of Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE) is really the story of Tatyana Grosman. She created, nur-tured and directed the Universal Limited Art Editions workshop for 25 years. She was the spirit and force behind the artists and print technicians who revived printmaking in America.

Tanya founded this venture in 1955 when she and her husband, Maurice, moved from lower Manhattan to West Islip, NY on Long Island. She had spent her married years being the femme d’artiste to her husband, a painter, until he had a heart attack (Sparks 12). At that point, she took over the financial responsibilities for the family and started a print shop with almost no experience.

Born in Siberia in 1904 to wealthy parents, Anna de Chochor and Semion Auguschewitsch, Jews converted to the Christian Orthodox Church, she was one of two chil-dren who shared a privileged bourgeois life. The family was living in Siberia because the Russian government had

May 5 – June 7, and the Royal Academy is organizing an overview of his graphic work from the 1960s to the present at Burlington House, Piccadilly, from June 2 – August 28.

Oasis (2006), Joan Snyder’s commissioned print for our Club, is featured in a current exhibition at Hofstra University. In Print, which includes work by a wide range of printmakers from the 16th century to the present, will be on view until September 18, 2016.

Will Barnet: 1950s Works on Paper is on view at Alexandre Gallery April 14 – May 27, 2016.

sent her father, a typographer, to start a newspaper there to inform the government of the activities in that remote part of Russia (Gilbert and Moore 11). She had drawing lessons and loved performing as a child. In 1918, when she was 14, her family left Russia to emigrate to Shimonoseki, Japan, where she attended a Sacred Heart convent school in Tokyo (Russell). She loved the calm and beauty of Japan after the turmoil of Russia during the Revolution. But her family left in 1919 to go to Venice and then Dresden. She disliked Dresden, missing Japan. As a result, she became reclusive, hiding herself in books (Sparks 11). After two years, she began to attend Dresden’s Academy of Fine Arts, studying drawing and fashion design. In 1928, she received the highest prize for a silk Japanese-style costume. A year later, at age twenty-five, she met Maurice Grosman. She was very drawn to Maurice, who was a Jewish, poor, bohemian painter and divorced with a son. In him she saw everything exciting, flamboyant and, as a poor artist, someone who needed loving and care. In spite of the strong objections of her family, especially her mother, she and Maurice were mar-ried in 1931. She was banished, leaving her possessions and wealthy background behind (Sparks 11-12).

In 1932, Tanya decided that they needed to move to Paris, to the city of artists, and away from Germany. Living in Montparnasse, they associated with other émi-

Former Presentation Print Artists

Collaborative Printmaking: The Emergence of Artistic Lithography in Mid-20th Century America [Part 2] -Universal Limited Art Editions

Former Showcase ArtistsKaren Whitman and Richard Pantell showed their

block prints, etchings and lithographs in City Stories at Walter Wickiser Gallery, 210 Eleventh Avenue, from April 2 through April 27, 2016.

Member NotesPrint Club President Kimberly Henrikson has been

named to the Board of the Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk, CT.

gré artists, including Jacques Lipchitz, Chaim Soutine and Ossip Zadkine. They lived meagerly on a small stipend from her parents, and when Maurice did sell a painting, he celebrated with his friends. In 1933, a daughter, Larissa, was born and lived only sixteen months. They continued to live in Paris until 1940 when they fled in a truck two days before the Nazis entered the city. They went south and walked across the Pyrenees into Spain (Sparks 12). It was Tatyana who led the couple through the mountains to safety. They went to Barcelona where they met friends and American officials who later helped them get visas to America in 1943.

Upon their arrival in New York, they lived in a one-room, fifth-floor walk-up on 8th Street. Maurice taught, got gallery representation and began to have infrequent shows. Tanya reassumed her role of femme d’artiste. Tanya promoted his art and showed friends and clients his paintings in their apartment. She “presented Maurice’s paintings on an easel the way she would later show her prints. She became an actress,” said Eunice Fearer, an early supporter and later a patron of the Grosmans (Sparks 12). This continued until 1955, when Maurice had a heart attack. Finally, they moved out of this apartment to the cottage they had owned in Bay Shore since 1944. Maurice could no longer manage the fifth-floor walk-up and had never supported Tanya very well. It was then that she realized and decided that she needed to be the one who earned the money and worked (Sparks 13). This was the motivation that led her to investigate printmak-ing. In Particular Passions, Grosman is quoted as remem-bering that, “Whatever I start, I have to put everything, all my life experience, all that I love, and all that I am inter-ested in. I decided that I would like to publish. I would like to combine words and images and only words and images that I like” (cited in Gilbert and Moore 11).

Tatyana was unsure where to put her new efforts to take over the couple’s financial responsibilities. She knew that she had to choose something that involved her strong interests in books and images. She imagined a project that would involve visual artists and writers (Sparks 13-14). However, she had to learn about publishing and printmaking. She first followed one of Maurice’s endeav-ors, making silkscreen reproductions of works by well-known artists such as Picasso and Grandma Moses, which he had sold to Marlborough Books. She began with the help of sculptor and neighbor, Mary Callery, who intro-duced her to gouache, which could be used for making a print. The comments she received from William S. Lieberman, Prints and Books Curator at the Museum of Modern Art, and Carl Zigrosser, Curator of the Department of Prints and Drawings at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, focused on the strong quality of the print-making but were critical of the fact that the art was repro-ductions. Lieberman encouraged her to move in another direction — to collaborate directly with artists to create original prints (“History” ULAE).

In 1955, the Grosmans began asking artist friends for their original work to reproduce. Soon after, Tanya con-vinced artist Larry Rivers, with whom she had become acquainted on a ship crossing the Atlantic, and poet Frank O’Hara to collaborate on a book of lithographs (Bloom). This was the birth of ULAE. Using her dramatic style, she

developed her relationships with the artists. She learned to question their artistic choices rather than to simply praise, and this technique led to further analysis of the work noted Keith Brintzenhofe, a printer who became her studio manager (Sparks 14). She worked with the artists and printers differently, “mothering” the artists while showing concern about the printers, especially about her ability to pay them. Once ULAE was under way, she was more at ease with them and created a staff of a group of young men whose needs she worked to satisfy. As Tanya became more knowledgeable and proficient in the print workshop, Maurice was less involved. There continued to be financial issues since neither she nor Maurice had ever been fiscally prudent, and the prints were created long before they were sold. The artists were expected to be patient. So while she lavished time, attention and com-forts on the artists while they were working at ULAE, she was slow to follow up financially in the early years (Sparks 14-15). Nonetheless, the workshop flourished and became nationally known as the print shop of Larry Rivers, James Rosenquist, Robert Rauschenberg, Jim Dine, Lee Bontecou, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Motherwell, Helen Frankenthaler, Jasper Johns and Buckminster Fuller, among others (Sparks 20).

Toward the end of her life, it was Bill Goldston, ULAE Director, who worked to maintain the health of both Tanya and her studio. She was nationally recognized with honorary doctorates and awards of distinction. She died in 1982, but her studio has gone on to further suc-cesses in the exploration and promotion of printmaking in America.

THE WORKSHOPThe workshop began in 1957 with a hodgepodge of

found objects and helpful people - two lithograph stones left on their front lawn, Mary Callery, who was an artist neighbor, another neighbor’s old lithography press, some plates from Max Weber, which they could re-strike, some abandoned stones from factories and a few lessons from Emanuel Edelman, a local lithography printer, who taught them how to use their lithographic press (Sparks 18-20).

The first collaborative project was a book of poems written by Frank O’Hara with lithographs by Larry Rivers, Stones (1960). It took two years to produce this book since these men were in demand, and Tanya was a perfectionist concerning the materials used and the pro-duction standards of the studio. The result was that the book was published after Larry Rivers finished his, and the studio’s, first single prints with master printer Robert Blackburn (Sparks 18-19). Robert (Bob) Blackburn was the first master printer at ULAE. He came to work there from his own printmaking workshop in Chelsea, New York City, where he had been creating prints for himself and other artists since the 1930s. He was a logical choice for Tanya’s new lithography workshop because he brought the printmaking knowledge and experience that Tanya lacked (“Bob Blackburn” Archives of American Art).

Maurice’s role changed to that of “artist selection” through their friends and his constant visits to galleries. He recognized the quality and originality of the work of many New York City artists, who were later to become



international art stars, early in their careers. Larry Rivers, his dealer and other artists recommended their artist friends and colleagues. Many young artists were living in New York in the late fifties and knew each other. So it was that Grace Hartigan, Marisol, Helen Frankenthaler, Jasper Johns, James Dine, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, Edwin Schlossberg, Buckminster Fuller and Barnett Newman, among others, worked with Tatyana and her printers to create original prints in the early years of ULAE (Sparks 20).

The collaboration of artists and writers continued to be a prime interest of Tanya’s. She approached many of the artists with suggestions of collaborations, especially with poets, which many knew of historically but had not con-sidered personally (Sparks 22-23). The studio developed into a place of creative and technical experimentation, col-laboration bringing many different fields of the fine arts together.

ULAE’s first exhibition was at the Cape Cod Festival in Hyannis, MA in 1961. It included the first prints by Helen Frankenthaler, such as First Stone. Then these works, and the first prints by Robert Motherwell, were shown in New York City later that year. Soon after, Mrs. Grosman pro-vided some prints in small editions to the new New York Hilton hotel. Original prints were still considered a lesser art form; however, when these prints were exhibited at the Whitney Museum in 1963, Cleve Gray, art critic and artist, praised them as “one of the most distinguished and largest collections of contemporary American prints in the world” (Gray 124-125). Tanya’s priorities and genius lay in her desire to meet each of her artists’ peculiar requests for stu-dio space, food, music and the sense of perfection and achievement in his/her printmaking process and results.

Various artists brought their own strengths to ULAE. Jasper Johns created a complete record of his printing pro-cesses. He helped standardize the terms “trial proof,” “working proof” and “artist’s proof” while keeping sam-ples of each of these stages in the development of his prints (Sparks 24-25). This process helped ULAE to become more organized in its record keeping and collec-tion of in-process drawings and proofs. ULAE went on to promote and create outstanding, high-quality lithographs. Many of the classic prints of the 1960s and 1970s came out of Universal Limited. Tanya went on to receive an honor-ary doctorate from Smith College in 1977 and an award for outstanding achievement in the arts from Brandeis University in 1981 (Russell). She kept up her involvement in ULAE until the end of her life.

THE ARTISTSThis is a selection of the many well-known artists who

created collaborative prints in varied styles and multiple techniques at ULAE in the 1950s and 1960s, during the early development of the workshop and publishing com-pany.

Mary Callery Mary Callery, the Grosmans’ neighbor on Long Island,

encouraged them to buy their first lithography press. Curt Valentin, a distinguished art dealer and publisher, introduced Mary to the Grosmans. And Mary in turn introduced the Grosmans to William S. Lieberman, who

was Curator of Prints and Books at the Museum of Modern Art. Through him, the Bartos Fund enabled MoMA to purchase ULAE prints for many years. Lieberman advised Tatyana to change the focus of her efforts from silkscreen reproductions to the creation and publication of original prints. Mary Callery was one of the first artists to contribute new work for the Grosmans’ endeavors (Sparks 55).

Many think that Callery was the first artist to create original printed artwork at ULAE. In 1955, Callery and Tanya were working together on the first screen print edi-tion, Sons of Morning (1955). Callery’s second edition, Variations on a Theme of “Callery-Leger” was printed on a gray paper that has become known as “Callery Gray,” and continues to be the trademark gray for which ULAE is known (“Mary Callery” ULAE). Callery’s last print at ULAE was created in 1959. This was about two years after ULAE had abandoned silkscreen printing to focus on lithography (Sparks 55). Lithography had proven to be especially well suited to collaborative printmaking with painters since brushes were often used and the image, color and tones were developed in stages that the artist and printmaker could test and vary throughout the pro-cess until the image was perfected. Also, because it is a highly autographic printmaking method, it lent itself especially well to gesture painting, one of the leading movements within Abstract Expressionism.

Larry Rivers Mrs. Grosman wanted to coordinate and publish col-

laborative works of art, works in which both artists would create the work together, making “spontaneous expres-sions of two artists” (Graphics from Long Island Collection from the Studio of Universal Limited Art Editions). In 1957, she first thought of creating a book with Larry Rivers, with whom she had previously discussed illustrated books and poetry in 1950. She suggested to Larry that his neighbor, Frank O’Hara, whose second book of poetry was about to be published, might be a good collaborator. Making use of the two Bavarian lithographic stones found in Grosman’s front yard, these two artists drew and wrote with a crayon, creating twelve pages for the book Stones. This first venture took two years to accomplish because the two artists were very busy, Tatyana had limited funds to hire a professional printer, and she was extremely obsessive about the materials and techniques used in her workshop. The Stones book has been praised in Artist’s Proof as having the “spontaneity and freshness of approach” both “in the drawing and the writing of the poet directly on the stone, word and image blending together, sometimes, overlapping one another, the smudg-es of the finger and all the accidents happening in the tur-moil of creation, give this work an emotional warmth and excitement” (Grosman 5). Such unity of work was a first-time event in American art, “where artist and poet, inspired by the same theme, drawing and writing on the same surface, at the same time…fusing both arts into an inseparable unity” (Grosman 5).

Over the years, this sense of perfection for each project became a well-known characteristic of hers and of ULAE’s work (Sparks 38). Rivers also created several edi-tions of individual images for ULAE over the ensuing



years. But it was his book that was Tanya’s first major collaborative project.

Jasper Johns Maurice and Tanya had an amazing feel for young art-

ists who were “promising, but nowhere near (their) even-tual position” of prominence in the art world, as Larry Rivers has stated (Rivers 102). The New York art scene was much smaller in the late 1950s and 1960s, so that the Grosmans were able to meet more artists through the art-ists with whom they were acquainted and their dealers, whom they already knew. This also meant that the vari-ous artists in different media knew each other and were open to collaborations.

Jasper Johns was one of these artists who was recom-mended to the Grosmans and, in turn, recommended oth-ers, such as Robert Rauschenberg and Jim Dine. Johns also worked with Frank O’Hara to create image-and-word prints (Sparks 20, 363). Tanya continued to intro-duce artists to each other and to foster collaborative artwork so that sometimes two artists, with a printer, were creating and testing the image as it was being devel-oped. Her concept of collaboration was taking its form. Tanya watched Johns work for two years before she approached him. She wanted to work only with people in whose work she was interested and who she thought she could introduce to a new, different medium, lithography. She did not jump into a printmaking relationship quickly because she was always very committed to making these collaborative projects succeed (Gilbert and Moore 19).

As noted earlier, Jasper Johns brought his meticulous, detail-oriented personality to ULAE. He worked with Tanya to create categories and numbering systems for his prints, thus organizing his work and treating every stage of development with care and thought for preservation (Sparks 24-25). Although other artists varied their number-ing systems and paid attention to the recording of their pro-cesses and development of their work, Tanya followed Johns’ example and henceforth treated her own archival col-lection with a view towards its historical value (Sparks 31). By the mid-1960s, ULAE was an organized and prospering artistic endeavor. Johns created his 0-9 Series of lithographs there from 1960-63. The master printer, Zigmunds Priede, worked with him to utilize the same Bavarian limestone to create the image of one number on top of the previous num-ber so that the images’ multiple numbers accumulated as the numbers advanced. Johns also developed his first etch-ings at this workshop with some images of Ale Cans (1967-68) and of a Savarin coffee can of paintbrushes, Paintbrushes (1967-69). The paintbrush image was later developed into the famous Savarin series of lithographs depicting paint-brushes in the same coffee can, which he created from 1977-81. One of these lithographs was used as the image for the poster and advertisements for his 1977-78 one-man exhibi-tion at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Annette Michelson has said, “…Johns’ lithographs are seen to possess a critical dimension rare in printmaking….the statements made in the major paintings are intensified or converted into meta-statements” (Michelson).

Helen Frankenthaler and Robert Motherwell In early 1961, Helen Frankenthaler and Robert

Motherwell (married at the time) came to work at ULAE. Normally, only one artist worked in the studios at any given time, but this was an exception. Tanya set up sepa-rate workspaces for each of them. She always made every effort to provide each artist with an optimal work envi-ronment, assistance and living conditions. As Robert Blackburn, master printer, remembered, “as much time and as many visits, as many trials and experiments” as the artist needed were provided until the edition was printed so that both the artist and Tanya, the publisher, were satisfied with the work (cited in Sparks 32).

Frankenthaler’s first prints in 1961, such as the litho-graph, First Stone (1961), helped to bring early attention to ULAE when they were shown in galleries on Cape Cod and in New York. Two of these lithographs, noted earlier, were subsequently lent to the White House in 1966 by Frankenthaler’s dealer, André Emmerich, thus further enhancing ULAE’s status. While lithography was the pri-mary printing method that Tanya offered at ULAE, she willingly let her artists venture into other techniques with printers proficient in these areas. Thus, Frankenthaler not only created lithographs, but also experimented with master printer Donn Steward to learn etching; later she worked with master printer Bill Goldston to create large color woodcuts with special reference to the image edges. These images she then incorporated into her paintings (Sparks 84).

In 1961, Robert Motherwell’s first lithographs were cre-ated in a studio which master printer Donn Steward pre-pared for Motherwell by covering the walls with proofs, drawings and collages that Motherwell had created earli-er. Motherwell returned to ULAE several times between 1961 and 1982 to work with several printers, including Zigmunds Priede in 1963, on In Black with Yellow. In addi-tion to his lithographs, Motherwell worked on etchings in his Abstract Expressionist style, including the book, A La Pintura (1968-72). He made only 17 print editions at ULAE, but they represent “the principal themes, sources and methods of his art” (Sparks 165).

Robert Rauschenberg ULAE worked with artists using many artistic styles

and materials. Rauschenberg’s work was extremely dif-ferent from Motherwell’s forceful abstract strokes of black and color. He incorporated images, papers and other col-lage elements that he collected and that he found around the workshop. He wanted to interpret daily life in its everyday objects and accidents. He collected “an endless supply of castoffs and oddments” for the new medium he called “combines” (Sparks 219). He worked to merge and deny “the gap between art and life” (cited in Solomon).

Rauschenberg was an artist of multiple media: paint-ing, printmaking, sculpture, dance, performance, stage managing and sometimes a mix of several of these. He was very open to collaboration and rarely worked with a preconceived idea of what the finished work would look like (Sparks 219). He enjoyed the human drama of cre-ativity, especially when working with someone else. He utilized the master printer to his full capacity. Over the course of his career, he worked with Jim Dine and Jean Tinguely, among other artists, and with scientists. The combination of images was most important for him, so



that his prints were done in black and white until Front Roll (1964). Color did not really enter his work for more than ten years, in part due to his use of black and white newspaper and magazine photographs. Thus color was not a major element in his print work and was often only used in muted tones (Sparks 226).

Rauschenberg shared an important success with Tanya when she entered Accident (1953) into the prestigious Ljubljana International Biennial Print competition and it won the Grand Prize. It brought ULAE international rec-ognition as a collaborative workshop and publisher and Mrs. Grosman professional and personal success and sat-isfaction for her dream and efforts (Sparks 226).

THE MASTER PRINTERS“She (Tatyana) was in love with her artists,” realized

Edwin Schlossberg, himself one of her artist/poets (cited in Sparks 14). She believed that an artist was special, unique, “relying only on himself” (cited in Sparks 14). In a way, this explains her relationship with the artists and printers who worked at ULAE. She was very motherly to the artists, treating them as her children. Claes Oldenburg told her that he already had a mother (Sparks 14). But while she thought of the printers as children also, they were not seen as her children (Sparks 14). She treated them more as workers and sometimes had stormy rela-tionships with them, which, especially in the early years, were often related to her ability to pay them or not. But she came to realize that they were an integral and neces-sary component of her collaborative focus and efforts, especially since she was not an artist herself.

Robert Blackburn Robert Blackburn was called a printmaker and painter,

in that order, as stated in the NY Times following his death (Cotter). He was introduced to printmaking in 1938 at the WPA Harlem Community Art Center, where he began to learn about lithography. Blackburn went on to establish his own printmaking workshop in 1948. Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, Augusta Savage and Charles Alston were his teachers and colleagues. Will Barnet, who taught him lithography in 1941 at the Art Students League in New York City, confirmed Blackburn’s “conviction that printmaking, though then out of fashion, was a primary art form worth focusing on as a career” (cited in Cotter). His first Printmaking Workshop was an informal coopera-tive in his Chelsea studio where “he and his friends experimented in innovative lithographic techniques” (cited in Cotter). Thomas Laidman, another of Barnet’s students, was one of the earliest founding members, while Barnet and John Von Wicht were important supporters of this new workshop (“Robert Blackburn” Archives of American Art). Anthony Frasconi was an early participant in the workshop also. When the nearby Atelier 17 returned to Paris after the war, Blackburn acquired an etching press for his studio to accommodate the artists who had worked there. This lively, focused group, who were making prints and developing printmaking tech-niques, including the use of colored inks, during the late 1940s and 1950s, was most unusual in America at that time. They were a multi-racial, ethnically and culturally diverse group of artists who were experimenting and col-

laborating with lithography techniques in a period when lithography was not considered fine art, but rather was seen as a commercial art or a craft (“Mission and History” RBPMW). Incorporated in 1971, the not-for-profit Printmaking Workshop (PMW) became the model for community-based cooperative print shops in the United States and overseas (Cotter).

During 1951-52, Blackburn and Barnet, by then art col-leagues, collaborated on a “groundbreaking suite of color lithographs” that were featured in the journal ARTnews (“Creative Space: Fifty Years of Robert Blackburn’s Printmaking Workshop,” Library of Congress). And so it was fitting that Mrs. Grosman, not an artist herself, sought out Blackburn, a skilled printmaking technician, to become the first master printer at ULAE in 1957, a posi-tion he held until 1963.

During his years at ULAE, Blackburn collaborated with Jim Dine, Helen Frankenthaler, Jasper Johns, and Robert Rauschenberg to translate their Abstract Expressionist and Pop Art imagery into prints. “In most cases, he taught the artists how to make lithographs, sharing his sensibility of the medium and his approach to the stone” (“Creative Space: Fifty Years of Robert Blackburn’s Printmaking Workshop,” Library of Congress ). Throughout his career, Blackburn was also developing his own abstract color imagery in his prints, such as Color Symphony, 1960. He was known for his color, multi-stone lithographic experimentation and technical excellence. “Blackburn challenged the idea of lithography as a high craft process in his own work as well as in…his studio” (Cullen 92-94). Mrs. Grosman was most fortunate to have found such a knowledgeable printmaker for her first mas-ter printer. He set the tone of excellence and collaboration that became ULAE’s reputation.

Bill Goldston Another early printer was Bill Goldston, who went on

to become the director of ULAE in 1982. He credits Tatyana for giving him “the possibility to be anything I could be” (cited in Sparks 9). Because he was the first printer to lead the ULAE workshop in intensive experi-mentation, Goldston advanced into a leadership position and took charge of directing both the studio and the busi-ness when Maurice died (“History” ULAE). At the end of Tatyana’s life, Goldston was the one who worked hard to keep both her and ULAE alive and continued on even after her death (Sparks 15).

Goldston came to ULAE with his former University of Minnesota art professor, Zigmunds Priede, in 1969 to work on lithographic experimentations and to produce editions for Frankenthaler and James Rosenquist. These two printers also developed ways to photosensitize litho-graphic stones for Rosenquist’s Tides, Drifts and Gulf.

Goldston promoted the idea of purchasing an offset press, which Mrs. Grosman felt was not an artist’s tool but a commercial one. However, a Mailander offset press, which had previously been used to print Rauschenberg’s Metropolitan poster, was purchased. After reconstructing the press to make it more versatile and precise, Goldston experimented with lithographic methods, and ULAE was able to produce high-quality posters, books and cata-logues of the artists’ work for the first time (Sparks 39).



This ancillary business, incorporated in 1969, was named Telamon and was located five minutes away. Also located there was the Vandercook press that was used for Motherwell’s A La Pintura book (Sparks 38).

Although Tatyana first viewed offset lithography as only a convenience, many artists preferred it, such as Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist and Jim Dine, who chose it for most of his work of the 1970s. Thus she accepted offset lithography using metal plates because her artists wanted it, and she strove to please them (Sparks 39). Later, Goldston also worked with Frankenthaler on her woodcut series, as mentioned above, thereby demonstrat-ing his versatility.

James V. Smith Master printer James V. Smith was the one who

worked with Jasper Johns perfecting drawing processes on lithographic plates. Their successful collaborative work can be seen especially in the Savarin series, which followed Johns’ etching, called Paintbrushes, of the same image (Sparks 39, 383-389). For the Savarin lithographs, the collaboration also included Bill Goldston. This series broke new ground by creating multi-stone, colored litho-graphs, which had the linear characteristics of etchings. This was yet another way of raising the status of lithogra-phy in the print and art worlds. Smith was only one of the many lithographic master printers who worked at ULAE with Tanya and later with Bill Goldston.

Donn Steward Donn Steward was the first master printer in the etch-

ing studio at ULAE. Technical advances happened with almost every edition, but “technology was deemphasized rather than publicized” (Sparks 43). Steward was fasci-nated by an aquatint grain in a Degas print, but not being able to identify it in his research, he finally came up with his own original solution (Sparks 43). Steward was one of the master printers from ULAE who went on to found his own print workshop.

CONCLUSIONTatyana Grosman was extremely concerned that she

provide her selected artists with the best of materials, working conditions and living accommodations. She hired the best of printers. Her concern resulted in a vast array of outstanding graphic works by American artists of dispa-rate philosophies, imagery and working styles. Her high standards quickly gained her a reputation that attracted some of the period’s most noteworthy young artists. She was pivotal in the rejuvenation and advancement of American collaborative printmaking, beginning in the 1960s, particularly in the field of lithography. “Her studio [had] a reputation for perfectionism that [was] unmatched anywhere else” (cited in Gilbert and Moore 11).

WORKS CITEDBloom, Marilyn (wife of Jack Bloom, painter). Personal

conversation with the author, April 2015.“Bob Blackburn.” Archives of American Art. Web. http://

www.aaa.si.edu. Cotter, Holland. Obituary, “Robert Blackburn, Founder

of the Printmaking Workshop, dies at 82.” The New York Times, April 25, 2003. Web. http://www.nytimes.com.

“Creative Space: Fifty Years of Robert Blackburn’s Printmaking Workshop.” Library of Congress: Exhibits. Web. www.libraryofcongress.gov/exhibits/Blackburn/foundingtheprintmakingworkshop.

Cullen, Deborah. “Appreciation: Robert Blackburn (1920-2003): A Printmaker’s Printmaker.” American Art Journal, Vol. 17, no.3 (Fall 2003): 92-94.

Gilbert, Lynn and Gaylen Moore. Particular Passions: talks with women who have shaped our times. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc./Publishers, 1981.

Graphics from Long Island Collection from the Studio of Universal Limited Art Editions (exhibition catalog). Hempstead, Long Island: Emily Lowe Gallery, Hofstra University, 1970.

Gray, Cleve. “A New Venture – The Hilton Hotel Collection.” Art in America, Vol. 51, no. 2 (April 1963): 124-125.

Grosman, Tatyana. “The Contemporary Print and the Book, Part I: American Printmakers and the Book.” Artist’s Proof, Issue No. 3. Spring, 1962 (Brooklyn, NY: The Pratt Graphic Art Center, 1962): 5.

“History.” Universal Limited Art Editions. Web. http://www.ulae.com/history.

“Mary Callery.” ULAE: Artists. Web. http://www.ulae.com/marycallery/index.aspx.

Michelson, Annette. “The Imaginary Object: Recent Prints by Jasper Johns.” Artist’s Proof. The Annual of Prints and Printmaking. Brooklyn, NY: Pratt Institute, 1968.

“Mission and History.” Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop. Web. http://www.rbpmw-efanyc.org/mission-history/.

Rivers, Larry. “Tatyana Grosman.” Art News, Vol. 81, no. 8 (October 1982): 102.

“Robert Blackburn.” Archives of American Art. Web. http://aaa.smithsonianinstitute.edu

Russell, John. Obituary, “Tatyana Grosman, Print pub-lisher, 78.”

The New York Times, July 26, 1982. Web. http://www.nytimes.com.

Solomon, Alan R. Robert Rauschenberg (exhibition cata-log). NY: The Jewish Museum, 1963.

Sparks, Esther. Universal Limited Art Editions: A History and Catalogue: The First

Twenty-Five Years. New York: Abrams, 1989.[This is the second installment in a four-part series drawn

from a master’s degree essay written by Sheila M. Fane. The introduction was published in the Fall 2015 Print Club Newsletter.]



FallFall 2012 The Print Club of New York, Inc. Page 15


Upcoming Print Club EventsTuesday, October 18, 2016, 6 – 8 p.m.

Save the date for the annual unveiling of the Print Club’s commissioned print, to be held at the National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South, New York.

Monday, November 7, 2016, 6 – 8 p.m.Print Club of New York 25th Anniversary Party,

50 United Nations Plaza. Save the date and watch for details about this special celebration.

Also of interest to Print Club Members:

Through June 12, 2016Alice in Japan: A Solo Exhibition of Prints by

Margot Bittenbender, Loft Artists Association, 575 Pacific Street, Stamford, CT, www.loftartists.com.

Through July 24, 2016Breaking Ground: Printmaking in the U.S., 1940 –

1960, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, PA www.philamuseum.org.

Through August 6, 2016Impressions of the Natural World: Japanese Prints

from the Special Collections Division, Newark Public Library, 5 Washington Street, Newark, NJ (973) 733-7837 or [email protected].

Through August 26, 2016The Lives of Forms, curated by Ksenia Nouril,

Lower East Side Printshop, 306 W. 37th Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY http://printshop.org.

Through August 28, 20165th Annual Foot Print Exhibition, Center for

Contemporary Printmaking, 299 West Avenue, Norwalk, CT (203) 899-7999 or www.contem-prints.org.

June 16 – September 24, 2016New Prints 2016/Summer, International Print

Center New York, 508 West 26th Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY www.ipcny.org.



The Print Club of New York, Inc.P.O. Box 4477 Grand Central StationNew York, N.Y. 10163

Notice To MembersThis year, The Print Club of New York will celebrate its

25th Anniversary. We are planning a party for members and our commissioned artists, which will be held on Monday, November 7 at 50 UN Plaza. Watch for details this summer. We will also be putting together a commem-orative gift book with entries for all 25 of our commis-sioned prints as well as a history of the Club. Individuals, families or businesses donating $100 or more to under-write the cost of producing this publication will be acknowledged in the book if funds are received by July 31. For details, please contact Board member Allison Tolman at [email protected].

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The Print Club of New Yorkprintclubofnewyork.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/... · Elisabetta Sirani (Italian, 1638 – 1665), the daughter of an artist, showed talent at a young